Forensic officers were directed to search a specific area of the Kings Road property where Daniel Morcombe's remains were eventually found two days before the search officially began.

Under cross examination from defence counsel Michael Boascher, Senior Constable Michael Kelly of the Brisbane Scientific Branch said he had been directed to examine a small pond and part of an embankment on the August 11 and 12.

Sergeant Donna MacGregor leaves court. Photo: Amy Remeikis

The police search began in earnest on August 13, under the direction of Detective Sergeant Graeme Farlow.

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It was not said why police undertook a search there at that time; Daniel's remains were eventually found uphill and up to 50 metres away from the pond.

In what was a long day of evidence and cross examination of forensic scientists and police involving complicated and thorough DNA explanations, the evidence on when the search began and why, was not delved into in detail.

Daniel's parents, Bruce and Denise. Photo: Dean Saffron

Parts of the committal hearing has been designated as closed for when certain witnesses give their evidence and it is possible that information will be examined more closely then.

But today was all about the evidence and what was found – or, as the case may be, not found by investigators.

A thorough forensic examination of a Mitsubishi Pajero four-wheel-drive and a mulcher did not reveal anything of "evidential value", the court was told by forensic scientific officer, Senior Constable Ashley Huth.

Daniel Morcombe. Photo: Supplied

Under cross examination, Senior Constable Huth said despite examining a list of areas within the vehicle which ran for three pages, including seat belts, passenger grab handles and the rear passenger seat cargo bay, he did not find any hair, blood or fibres which he could say belonged to 13-year-old Daniel.

The Mitsubishi had previously been examined in 2003.

Senior Constable Huth said he also found nothing of evidential value in the mulcher.

However, the forensic officer, who is undertaking a masters degree in forensic science at Griffith University, was able to determine two shoes found at the scene were a pair.

Senior Constable Huth was first given the right shoe and then the left to examine (the shoes were found three days apart, the first on August 17) and said, despite their degraded state, he was able to determine they were consistent with the light blue/light grey Globe brand sneakers he had been given as a comparison.

Daniel was believed to have been wearing shoes which matched that description when he was last seen alive, walking to catch a bus on December 7, 2003, so he could buy Christmas presents for his family.

The committal hearing in front of chief magistrate Brendan Butler will continue tomorrow.

EARLIER

More than a year after police knocked on the Morcombe's front door and told Denise and Bruce they had identified bones found in bush land at the Glass House Mountains as belonging to their son, the couple were faced with photos of those remains in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

It is as close as they have come to Daniel's remains; due to ongoing forensic testing, the couple have been unable to lay their 13-year-old to rest.

Mrs Morcombe left the court room as scientific officer, Sergeant Donna MacGregor, began to explain how forensic and scientific staff identified where in the body each bone came from, while referring to photos taken during an autopsy.

Just 17 skeletal elements were found throughout the two month search of dense scrub surrounding a pond on a property on Kings Road at Glass House.

Included among the remains were part of a right hip, rib and vertebrae fragments and sections of fibula and tibia bones.

The photos showed bone fragments that were so discoloured they appeared as dark as a wet tea bag.

Sergeant MacGregor said scientific officers were unable to determine either the gender or race of the person the bones belonged to, as there were not enough found and those fragments which were found, were degraded.

However she said the lack of muscle marking, where muscles grip onto the bone as a person grows and matures, were among the indicators used to conclude the remains belonged to a juvenile boy or girl aged between 9½ and 14 years old.

Forensic analysis of the hip bone fragment found it had not yet fused to other parts of the hip, a growth indicator which occurs as a person ages, which also helped officers conclude the remains belonged to a juvenile.

Sergeant Macgregor said the condition of the bones led investigators to conclude they had been in the area for at least five years before they were found.

Scratches on some of the bones, including an eight centimetre scratch on the femur, were thought to have come from what Sergeant MacGregor called "animal interference" and not, she believed, damage to have occurred during recovery.

She admitted that some of the more fragile bones, such as the rib fragments, probably had been damaged during recovery and forensic analysis could show that by the lack of dirt present in some of the breaks.

Photos of the fibula and tibia were shown as Sergeant MacGregor explained the process she and other scientific officers went through to identify them – looking for "borders" and other identifying markers which distinguished one bone from another.

She used a 3-D skeletal representation, which had been placed next to her, to point out where each bone belonged on the body.

Sergeant MacGregor, who is on approved leave from the Queensland Police Service while she lectures on human anatomy at the University of Queensland, said given the condition of the bones, the remains needed to be examined "in situ" or in person, as photos masked many of the indicators officers were looking for.

However, when defence counsel Michael Bosscher began asking about the possibility of contamination by searchers and scientific officers, Sergeant MacGregor said there were procedures in place to guard against that, which included the wearing of gloves and face masks by scientific officers.

She also said some of the SES and police cadet searchers who removed some of the remains were only wearing gloves, as it was too hot to ask them to also don face masks for the long and arduous search which eventually recovered the bone fragments.

During Sergeant MacGregor's 90 minute examination and cross examination, Brett Peter Cowan, the man accused of abducting and murdering Daniel Morcombe on December 7, 2003, sat slumped in the dock.

However, unlike the first two witnesses of the day, which included a New Zealand forensic scientist who appeared by video link, Cowan looked in Sergeant MacGregor's direction as she gave evidence. Previously, Cowan had looked at the legal bench, or directed his eyes downwards.

The committal hearing was broken for lunch at 1pm. Sergeant MacGregor's evidence will continue after the break.

EARLIER

Police did not allow the Morcombe family to enter the primary search area where the remains of their son and brother, Daniel, were found in August last year.

The Morcombes had asked to visit the Glass House Mountains Kings Road site, where searchers would eventually find shoes and bones later identified as belonging to the 13-year-old.

The crime scene manager, Detective Sergeant Graeme Farlow, with the Sunshine Coast CIB, said he did not permit the Morcombes to enter the primary search zone during their visit, and instead requested they remain behind a designated boundary.

Sergeant Farlow, the second witness in day two of the committal hearing of the man accused of abducting and murdering the Sunshine Coast teenager, Brett Peter Cowan, was only required to give evidence for 20 minutes before he was excused from the stand and was mostly required to confirm his role in the investigation.

Daniel's remains were identified by DNA taken from his toothbrush, eight years after he went missing from a Sunshine Coast road.

Much of the second morning of the committal hearing of Mr Cowan, the man accused of luring the schoolboy to his car on December 7, 2003, before assaulting and murdering him, was spent cross-examining a New Zealand forensics expert over complicated DNA evidence.

It was revealed that police sent part of a humerus bone found in bushland in the Glasshouse Mountains in August to the New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research for identification.

Using a green and clear Colgate toothbrush the laboratory was told belonged to the teen, forensic scientist Catherine McGovern matched six out of 26 DNA reference points to Daniel.

Ms McGovern said the six sites were where the lab could find reproducible results.

Defence counsel Michael Bosscher argued one of the tests used by the laboratory to extract DNA, the low copy number technique, or LCN, was problematic because the sensitive nature of the test left it open to contamination.

But Ms McGovern said the laboratory took precautions with all its samples. For all tests, staff wore hats, face masks, glasses, lab coats, booties and two pairs of gloves while working to prevent accidentally contamination, she said.

Ms McGovern said access to the lab was restricted, so only staff working on samples were allowed into the room.

Mr Bosscher said he had an image in his head of a "James Bond movie" where staff wore "semi-spacesuits", but he said before arriving at the lab for testing, samples had been "touched, looked at, spoken at, breathed on, put into a container and taken out", which could have an impact.

Ms McGovern answered yes, but said the same was true of any sample.

Mr Bosscher asked a series of questions on whether a member of Daniel's family could match the DNA at the same six sites where scientists found reference points on the humerus.

Ms McGovern said it was improbable, but not impossible, and a separate DNA test from a specific family member would be needed to be conducted for definite results.

Ms McGovern spent close to two hours giving evidence by video link from New Zealand.

Cowan, wearing the same wrinkled clothes as yesterday, sat in the dock staring at the legal bench.

His eyes did not move to the small screen where Ms McGovern could be seen giving evidence and he barely moved other than to raise his eyebrows.

28 Nov
The forensic podiatrist who examined shoes recovered during the search for Daniel Morcombe's remains said he could not exclude the 13-year-old as the wearer of the sneakers but could not definitively state he wore the footwear.